LA Road Trip

A few weeks ago, after Tanner and I had booked flights to New York, we got a text from our good friend Mitch asking us if we wanted to go on a Memorial Day road trip to LA. And after a few minutes of "Maybe we shouldn't, we're going on another trip the next weekend" we decided that you can't pass up a road trip to California.

Mitch, Kamron, Kallin and Karli headed out on Thursday evening and me, Tanner, and Brayden left a few hours later (stupid Enterprise always wanting Tanner to earn money for our family and stuff) and drove until 2 AM to Vegas. We slept a solid (and by solid I mean definitely not solid) 3 hours, ate some McDonalds for breakfast (what a great start to the day) and finished the rest of the drive together to California (in our rocking rental mini van.)

Once we got to Santa Monica, we went straight to the beach. We parked like 5 stories up at a parking garage and I ran out of the van because I was about to pee my pants. I figured I'd just walk to the shop next door and hurry and go to the bathroom before the boys even got down all the stairs. Well- 20 minutes and like 15 shops later, I finally found someone that would let me use their bathroom! Why does no one know the right directions to the bathrooms? But thankfully, my bathroom detour led to the cutest farmer's market and I tried samples of peaches and oranges and fresh squeezed juice! And it was almost worth the close call.

Then, I decided I wanted Chipotle for lunch so that took another 15 minutes to find but it was definitely worth it. I think that maximum happiness is eating a burrito on a beach:

Here is Tanner showing his excitement about beach life:

At the beach, the boys played some spikeball, I read my book, and I took a nice snooze. And I didn't get wet at all. The best beach trip ever. We all decided that one day we will own a beach house next to Santa Monica Pier. They only cost like 5 million dollars, it should only take a few years to get there ;) 

Around 3:00, the rest of the group left to the Dodgers game. Since Tanner and I 1) aren't that into baseball and 2) didn't want to pay $50 to watch a game we don't even like, we decided to spend time together doing something else. And I'm SO GLAD we did. We went to the Getty museum and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I really like museums and this one was amazing. The paintings were SO OLD and I am just amazed that they are preserved for so long. And the building itself was gorgeous, and they even had a poetry exhibit.

I was kinda geeking out right here because this is a painting by William Turner. I studied Turner quite extensively in my 19th Century British Lit class and even wrote a paper about one of his paintings. It was really cool to see one of his original paintings in the flesh! 

Here I am with millions of dollars worth of paintings. That one on the left is called "Irises" by Van Gogh, and it was another one of my favorites of the day.

The museum was only reached by a tram so there was an amazing view of the city from all the way up there. And it's always a miracle when the random person that you ask to take your picture actually does a good job.

After a few hours at the museum, we had to go pick everyone else up from the game. And finally at 9:00 (watch out for hangry Kenzie) Tanner and I ate at a pizza place by our motel (it wasn't that good) and then we went to the pier. Some of our friends rode some of the rides (what a rip off), we watched people try to win stuffed animals (and I always just thought of Despicable Me... "Knocked OVER!"), and we ate a delicious cookie dough shake. 

My handsome husband. 

Saturday night we stayed at the Palm Motel. What they lacked in cleanliness they made up for in color... and personality. The ladies in charge of continental breakfast on Sunday (aka coffee and cookies) realllly wanted us to know that their coffee was high quality Starbucks coffee haha. We decided to go to the gas station down the street. (Public service announcement don't buy the protein Odwalla smoothie it tastes like garbage.)

After fueling up, we drove up to the observatory in La La Land, BUT, in typical LA style, there was no parking anywhere. So we went to Hollywood!

Here I am with thousands of my closest friends. 

And the highlight of the day- CHRIS PRATT. 

The guys did an escape room that was based on the new mummy movie. Me, being the ultimate scaredy cat, decided to sit this one out, but they finished in record time, and us girls got to hear them scream. 

CITY OF STARS ARE YOU SHINING JUST FOR ME. (I had La La Land lyrics in my head all weekend, and how cute is Emma Stone with her heel footprints.)

After Hollywood, we drove through Beverly Hills, gawking at the giant houses, and hoping we'd see celebrities. (I know you're there somewhere, Mindy Kaling!) Then we started our journey back to Vegas. We ate at a surprisingly good casino restaurant and went to bed like the exhausted party poopers we are. The next day was just spent in the car. The girls and Kam and Mitch drove Kamron's car home from Vegas and me, Tan, and Brayden were in the van. After a few hours, Mitch decided to play a little prank on us and stick his butt out the window while driving past. However, when he pulled up to the side of a white van a few hours past Vegas, they quickly discovered that it was definitely not our van and now a poor family was probably scarred for life, trying to explain to their children that people make bad decisions sometime ;) 

Until next time, LA! And a quick shout out to Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran for helping me get through the traffic on the way home.